


swim with me (i think i could see the beach)

by brian_zeller



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: (to a certain point), Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Post-Season/Series 03, Road Trips, billy dies but he's still alive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:14:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23516752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brian_zeller/pseuds/brian_zeller
Summary: It was the fourth of July and Billy fought a monster. Steve interlocked his fingers with Billy’s, mixing Billy’s blood with his palm. A pact. Steve brought Billy’s hand to his face, kissed his bloody fingers, getting some on his lips.“It’s okay,” Billy felt himself say. His mouth moved, blood trickled onto his chin.“Billy—,” Steve was a broken record, holding onto a boy of eighteen. They were supposed to go to California together. Billy could already feel the waves. The seagulls were so loud.Five years ago, Billy Hargrove died. For four years and eleven months, Steve Harrington drives around America, avoiding California.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington, brief steve harrington/original male characters
Comments: 9
Kudos: 68





	swim with me (i think i could see the beach)

**Author's Note:**

> oh my gosh, this has been one of my favorite pieces i've spent time on. i've been working on it since november on and off, and i'm so glad to be able to finally share my bittersweet little work with you guys. i also really hope all the math is correct, i'm a humanities major...also, i have barely been to california (and texas, and new mexico, and arizona, and many places in america) so i'm sorry if the geography or travel distance isn't 100% accurate. 
> 
> title is from "the beach" by the neighbourhood 
> 
> warning: one of the scenes involves some dubious consent. steve is very drunk and lonely. 
> 
> [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/13uo3uSQRWi82yVVH7hBal?si=fZxIyOvSQkSoniSMpVf91A)

**March, 1985**

Billy was crying. It was an unusual sight that Steve had grown uncomfortably familiar with. His hands wrapped around Billy’s shaking shoulders, from the passenger side of Billy’s Camaro. He breathed into Billy’s neck, unable to form words of advice, words of comfort. Billy silently cried into the crook of Steve’s elbow, tears dampening Steve’s sweatshirt. It was Billy’s anyway, the sweatshirt, some cropped gray thing that Steve kept when Billy left it at the foot of his bed. It smelled like cigarettes and sweat and, somehow, sea salt. Familiar and comforting. It was Billy. 

Billy’s hands gripped Steve’s thighs, steadying himself. He sniffled once, tears slowing down. There was dried blood on his nose and it stained the sleeve of Steve’s stolen sweatshirt. 

“I have to get out of here,” Billy said, voice weak and seconds away from crumbling. Steve hugged him closer. “I have to get away from him.” 

“Only a few more months,” Steve whispered into Billy’s hair. He pressed his nose into the curls and found himself home. He was quickly beginning to think of Billy as synonymous with home. Nights spent gripping each other under Steve’s duvet, morning swims in the pool, countless rocks thrown at Billy’s window, Steve testing their luck. Nights at the quarry, giggling into each other’s stomachs, pointed looks secretly tossed from across the hall at school, racing down back roads after dropping the kids off at the arcade. Steve felt safe in Billy’s arms and Billy felt safe in Steve’s arms. 

“A few more months and we’re out of here, baby.” It felt cheesy but Steve meant it. He meant it the many times he repeated it to Billy. Stars watching over them as they walked silently through the woods, Steve’s baseball bat swinging comfortably from his tight grip, bruises on his neck. 

Billy nodded, head tucked into Steve’s side. They watched the expanse of road ahead of them, stretched pitch black nothingness. 

“Tell me again,” Steve murmured, dragging Billy closer to his side. “Tell me where we’re gonna go, what we’re gonna see.” 

Billy lightly shoved Steve’s side, “I’m not a kid, Harrington.” He sighed, then continued. “We’re gonna go to the beach. I’m gonna teach you how to swim, how to _really_ swim. Surf a little.” 

“Yeah? My dog paddle around the pool ain’t cutting it?” Steve snorted, Billy’s smile came back little by little. 

“Not even close.” Billy let out a wet chuckle, wiped his snotty nose on his denim jacket. “We’ll go to the boardwalk, find some trashy tie dye Cali tee for you.” Billy grabbed Steve’s hand, locking it in a death grip. “We can drive all over the place, see the Redwoods, see the ocean. You’ll love it, sweetheart.” 

Steve smiled, it sounded nice. It sounded good and tangible, he could almost feel the sand slipping through his fingertips. He could smell the saltwater, sure he’d never been farther west than Chicago and here he was promising his future to Billy Hargrove and seashells. To long walks on the beach straight out of his mom’s romance novels that he’d read when bored. To sunsets and ice cream and surfing all to see Billy smile. 

“Few more months,” Steve whispered once more and watched a shooting star pass by overhead. **  
**

**July, 1985**

Billy was brave. And he was _good_ . Goddamnit, he was brave and bold and he was finally good. He was filled with things more than hatred and anger and neglect. He had dreams and desires and sadness running through his blood — and oh, how his blood was running more than it ever had. Pooling under his tongue, dripping onto the linoleum tiles of the Starcourt floor. He was good. He was good, he was good, he was _good_. 

The monster was dead and Billy, a monster in of himself, was dying. A little girl was saved and Billy remembered what it felt like to be a little boy. He wondered if he’d go back there, to when it was simple. Sand beneath toes, his mother’s smile like sunshine on a cloudy day. She had bruises on her wrists and Billy had a surfboard tucked under his arm. It wasn’t perfect but it was everything. He wanted to see her, he really hoped he’d get to see her. His face was wet — monster’s flesh and goo and salty tears. 

There was sobbing above him, his focus fuzzy. He smiled, his head dizzy. His fingertips were drenched in black, his blood still so dark even with the flashing lights above him. 

“Billy—,” there was a hiccup. A choked off exclamation of sadness. It sounded like Max. 

“Billy, Billy —” another voice, a tear fell into his mouth. “Baby, we’re gonna—” It was Steve. “We’re gonna get you out of here.” 

Billy smiled. Steve. He outstretched his black gooey fingers. They were lit up in blue, in yellow, in red. Fireworks. It was the fourth of July and Billy fought a monster. Steve interlocked his fingers with Billy’s, mixing Billy’s blood with his palm. A pact. Steve brought Billy’s hand to his face, kissed his bloody fingers, getting some on his lips. 

“It’s okay,” Billy felt himself say. His mouth moved, blood trickled onto his chin. 

“Billy—,” Steve was a broken record, holding onto a boy of eighteen. They were supposed to go to California together. Billy could already feel the waves. The seagulls were so loud. 

“I’m good,” Billy said. His chest was so warm. White tank top colored red. The saltwater was lapping at his feet, his mom waving him over with her straw hat. 

Billy was good. 

\------

Billy was dead. He died. He was no longer living. He had stopped breathing, stopped existing. He was a rotting corpse, flesh gone gray and hard. There was caked blood, pus yellow rounds from where he’d been stabbed. He’d be buried, he hoped one person would cry at his funeral. He would break down over time, flesh rotting into bone, and the Earth would keep turning as eighteen year old Billy Hargrove was forgotten — death by unknown causes. 

So, why was he here, strapped to a metal table and definitely aware of his breathing and his new status of being alive _again._ He had still died, right? He thinks he remembers a stabbing pain, tentacle like appendages ripping through his guts, soaking his white tank top to black. He remembers darkness, Max crying out his name — ‘ _Billy, Billy, Billy’_ — had she really been sad? Had he really been missed? Had he really been dead? 

He choked out, mouth parched. His stomach vaguely stung, his bruised hand coasting along his bare torso where — where there were only a few pink spots? No. No — he should have tears, rips, broken flesh. This was barely a hint of what happened. A few stitches, a few spots of puckered pink skin. He hadn’t made the whole thing up. He wasn’t crazy. He was angry and he had died. 

Billy tried to sit up, kicked the white sheet off of him — was he going into a vault? One meant for other corpses? He winced slightly in pain and wheezed when his bare feet met the cold linoleum floor. He was naked and pissed off, searching for his bloody clothes. They were in the trash bin, wrapped in plastic and sitting underneath a discarded, half-full cup of coffee. Billy took a sip of the coffee, desperate for some liquid, before cringing and spitting it out onto the floor. He got dressed in a rush, listening for approaching footsteps that never came. 

He felt crusty, sneaking out of the endless halls in his garbage bin clothes and the stinking feeling of still being dead. He padded his jean pockets, finding his wallet and car keys. He wanted nothing more than to leave, to walk out of the morgue and crawl into the backseat of his Camaro. Sink into a ball, die a bit more, then wake up and drive to California. 

He needed to leave. He skimmed through his wallet and found a total of twenty dollars and sixteen cents. Good enough. He kicked the front door and exposed himself to the world. Billy Hargrove was alive and he was getting the fuck out of Hawkins. 

He slammed himself into the driver's seat, eyes searching the parking lot and waiting for the inevitable guards and scientists to come chasing after him, guns blazing and killing him for good. There was no sound, no footsteps, no shells hitting the ground, there wasn’t even a goddamn bird chirping. He started the engine, pulled out of the parking lot, and hit the road. His mind still felt fuzzy from his revival of life and his heart felt heavy. He wondered if anyone was going to miss him. Would anyone think of him, would anyone show up to his funeral. Would he have a funeral? Was there a notice of his death? 

Billy sped up, flying down the early morning backstreets of Indiana. At the edge of town, he breathed a sigh of relief and felt himself come back to life. He let out a cackle and a hoot, hitting the ceiling of the Camaro. 

He didn’t even notice Steve’s Beemer on the edge of the woods, perched precariously as if watching Billy leave without a goodbye. 

\-----

Billy was dead. He died. He was no longer living. Steve punched the tree, tore skin on his knuckles and watched as his blood came rushing to the surface. He kicked the tree, stubbing his toe and letting out a swear. Billy fucking _died_ , the jackass went and got himself killed. The goddamn bastard, just as selfish in death as he was in life, had to play hero and now Steve was left alone to punch trees and cry on the edge of town. 

Why did Billy have to sacrifice himself? They were about to get the Mindflayer out of him, he could’ve been saved. El was _so_ close. Steve had stood hunched over them, breath withheld and eye still black from where Billy had punched him when Steve tried to restrain him. Billy kissed it with his dying breaths. Steve punched Billy’s chest, where his heart had been pierced by a monster tentacle and swore he was going to kick his ass if he didn’t stop fooling around. 

Billy hadn’t been fooling around. He died with his bloodied palm in Steve’s bloodied palm, tear streaked dirt on his cheeks. He looked so fucking young. God, Billy was a _kid_. He was eighteen and they were supposed to skip town together at the end of summer. They were gonna pack Billy’s Camaro up, sell Steve’s Beemer for cash, and hit the road. They wouldn’t stop until they got to California, until they got to the beach, until they washed the grease from their hair in the salt water. Steve thought there might be surfers, bikini clad girls on the beach, seagulls laughing as Steve ran his calloused fingers through Billy’s knotted curls. 

But now Billy was dead and there wasn’t even a corpse to show for it. When Steve awoke, concussed head rising in the debris of the Starcourt Mall food court, his hand was empty and where Billy had been laying lifeless was unoccupied. The kids had all been there, El curled in Mike’s arms, huddled on a bench. The fountain was still running, water gushing out and coins at the bottom. He heard Joyce’s hushing voice, calming Will, who was already calm. Dustin and Lucas sat silent, eyes fixed on Max whose eyes were fixed on Steve. Everything hurt but the physical toll was not as painful as knowing that Billy’s damaged, bloodied body had been snatched in the night. 

Maybe he walked off, Max had tried suggesting. She wiped her nose with her sleeve and called Billy a dick. Maybe he walked off, maybe he’s walking to California. Steve awkwardly put his arm around her shoulders only for her to push him away. She stomped over to the fountain. Steve felt a desire to give her a coin, but tossing it into a mall fountain wouldn’t bring Billy back to them. 

He fished out a dime and threw it in anyways. 

Steve punched the tree once more, sobbed into his elbow, and wailed. His masochistic mind — the one that still had some twisted notion that Billy and him would still be able to disappear to California, still polluted with memories of sharing cigarettes by the pool, Billy’s smile when they first kissed — made him think he heard the dim growl of the Camaro. Steve fell to the ground and continued crying. 

**March, 1990**

Steve drove along the dirt roads of Texas, at the ripe old age of twenty-four, feeling like his life may be going nowhere. He had felt confident once, back in 1985 when he was king of the school and had a love that made him feel found for the first time since he began feeling lost. Now he had Texas. And Colorado. And Oregon. And for a little bit, Kansas. He drifted through states like he used to drive through girls, bodies keeping him warm and safe. He did not feel safe driving the tumbleweed ridden roads of Texas, the sun shining through the rolled down windows of his car, and static playing from the stereo. 

He’d avoided California, skirted everywhere in the country except for the Golden State. Hell, he’d been to New York, like, four times now. But, still no California. But somewhere deep inside himself, he thought he might be headed there. 

Steve pulled off the side of the road and turned off the engine. Composing his thoughts, he thought about where he was and what he was doing. He made a mental list. 

First. Almost five years ago, Billy Hargrove died and his body vanished. Four years and eight months ago, Steve Harrington left Hawkins, Indiana for the first time in his life with a liquidated trust fund that was meant to be used for college and a duffel bag with whatever clothes had been clean at the time and one t-shirt that had not been. He had left around three in the morning and his parents had been in Connecticut, visiting some business friend who was getting married or some shit. Steve left a note, something along the lines of:

_Mom, dad. Went for a drive. I’m okay, need time. Love you, Steve._

Second. For four years and eight months Steve had held onto the notion that he wasn’t looking for Billy. If he went to California, he reasoned, that would mean he officially came to terms with his plan to find Billy. That was _not_ his plan. His plan was to go for a drive and get some fresh air, clear his head. Somewhere along the line, as things typically went in Steve’s life, things had gotten fucked up and now he had driven in zig-zagged lines across the United States of America and he was on a quarter tank of gas in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere, Texas. 

Third — was there a third thing? Third. Steve had turned twenty-four two weeks ago. He had been in a grimy motel and jacked off to thoughts of his dead high school sweetheart. He called his parents, from the hotel landline, at around six p.m. and there was no answer. They must’ve been on a trip. Steve took a shower, went down to the corner store and with crumpled bills bought himself a bottle of wine and a packet of M&Ms. He told the store clerk that it was his birthday and in a raspy voice she had laughed. He drank the wine in the empty bathtub and with cold porcelain touching his sticky thighs, then promptly fell asleep with a heavy mind at eight p.m. 

Steve started the car again and drove into the scorching desert sand, heading West. Somewhere along the way the radio came back. The station was playing Metallica. He smiled, turning it up as he breezed through the south. 

\-----

The Motel 6 was a beacon of hope in his otherwise hopeless life. It shone brightly, illuminating a safe haven. It was somewhere around eleven-thirty p.m. and Steve could feel his eyes caking over with springtime sweat and dust. For hours, no other headlight had been present on the road. Just him. Just him and now a Motel 6. 

“Evening,” Steve spoke, his first word in sixty-seven hours. A personal record. His mouth felt very gritty and it was kind of an epic new feeling, like he was some old tired cowboy. In some far away world, Billy had been his rival and they would’ve dueled in town square. 

In this world, the tired manager handed Steve a key to a single room and snatched the money up quickly, as if it would dissipate had he not. Steve unlocked the door, duffel bag from four years and eight months ago slung over his shoulder, and breathed in the stale, rotting air of an abandoned motel. He went to the shower first, washing the grime off of him. He thought of Billy, not an uncommon thought or an unwelcome thought. He thought of finding Billy and he thought he was delusional for thinking Billy was able to be found. 

What was he doing searching for a corpse? For a man that was dead? 

Steve took the bar of soap to his armpits. He was looking for a boy that he spent barely four months with, half of it fighting and the other half fucking. Four months and now nearly five years later he was still expecting to stumble upon him once more. Did he expect they’d fall into a natural place? Fall in line and words of love and tender actions would come gushing out of their closed scars? 

No. Steve shampooed his hair. It smelled like lemon. There was nothing but a natural hatred that turned into lust between him and Billy. They were not some epic romance from his mom’s paperbacks. They were destined to break, seams already ripped.

It’s not his fault he was inching closer to California, to a plan to find Billy. 

**April, 1990**

Steve was in a telephone box in New Mexico. He left Texas for the last time three days ago — he didn’t know why he kept going to Texas. Texas sucked. It was raining, he didn’t think it rained in the desert. He put a coin in the slot, dialed Dustin’s number with cold fingers. 

“Hello?” Dustin picked it up immediately. It became a habit when Steve fucked off four years and nine months ago. 

“Hey, it’s Steve.” He smiled. Dustin sounded like a man. He was now the same age Billy was when he died. Steve watched the rain outside, patterns on the glass. 

“Steve, god. Fuck.” Dustin always cursed. His mother hated it. “It’s like, one a.m., man.” 

“Oh, sorry.” Steve watched lightning strike outside, lighting up the tiny town in white. “I can call back tomorrow.” He could always find more coins with the roaches under his motel bed. 

“No, it’s—” He heard Mrs. Henderson worriedly ask who was on the line. “No, mom it’s okay. It’s just Steve— yeah he’s, you’re okay?”

“Yeah.” No. 

“He’s okay mom, just an idiot.” Steve laughed at that. “Sorry he woke you up, ma.” 

“Tell her sorry from me, too.” There was a boom of thunder outside.

“Steve’s sorry for being an asshole and ditching us!” Steve heard Mrs. Henderson chortle in that motherly way of hers and a door close. “Okay, what do you want?”

“I’m not an asshole.” There was silence. “Okay, sorry for being an asshole. Just wanted to call and check up, it’s been a while, _jeez_.” 

“Well, good. Worried you were dead in a ditch somewhere in Alabama. Killed by some hillbilly with a shotgun.” It was surprisingly tame compared to Barb and Billy’s deaths. He’d take it. “You don’t call enough. When’s the last time you spoke to your parents?” 

“Dunno, they didn’t answer last time I called.” On his birthday. They were out of town. What if Steve _had_ been dead in the ditch in Alabama and the police were calling? Whatever. He was dead to them the minute he drove off at three a.m., four years and nine months ago. He spoke to them maybe, six times in the past four years and nine months. They were always gone anyways. His room probably hadn’t even been touched, dust on his tee-ball trophies. Most improved.

“Well, fuck them.” Steve laughed, Dustin was so fiery. He missed the kid. “Where are you?” 

“New Mexico, not sure what town.” Another lightning strike. “It’s raining.” Storming. 

“Steve.” 

“Dustin.”

“How long till you come home?” He sounded like a kid again, like the thirteen year old Steve knew all those years ago. Trucker hat over untamed curls. Steve’s bat from five years ago was still in his trunk and hadn't been swung at a demodog since. 

“Hawkins isn’t—” Steve paused. “It’s not home. Not anymore.” Because home died in Hawkins. Home died in Hawkins at eighteen. Home was hidden in some Russian basement or six feet underground, a nameless plot of earth decomposing, worms in his eyes and bones— home wasn’t— 

“It could be. Again,” Dustin said, too smart for his own good. But not right now. Not when Steve was in the middle of a thunderstorm in New Mexico, fighting off a cold. Twenty four years of his life down the drain, only one pathetic aspiration to achieve. “If you came back.” 

“To what, Dustin?” Steve didn’t wanna cry, he was an adult. But it was convenient to be fragile and allow his emotions dictate every move he made. “To you and the party going off to college? To a cold, empty house? To the fact that Billy is _dead_ and I’m— he’s never—” Steve was crying, silently into his sleeve, Billy’s old sweatshirt that hadn’t been washed in four years and nine months. If he washed it, it’d stop smelling like Billy, like home. “I can’t. You know that.” 

“You can’t blame yourself for that, Steve. You can’t keep punishing yourself.” Dustin inhaled. “It wasn’t your fault, how long are you gonna pretend it was?” 

“It’s not like I saved him either.” Steve ran a hand through his hair. “Or stopped him.” 

There was silence on both ends, thunder rumbling. Another lightning strike. 

“You should go back to bed,” Steve said, defeatedly. “It’s late.” 

“I’m eighteen, Steve.” He could hear Dustin rolling his eyes, fondness in his voice. Steve really did miss the kid, he just couldn’t go back. Not now. Maybe not ever. 

“You’re ancient, gonna be wheeling you around soon.” His joke fell flat. Billy was eighteen and dead. 

“Are you gonna come for graduation?” Dustin asked, nervous on the other end. Steve couldn’t imagine walking through the halls of Hawkins High. There’d be no plaque for Billy, he was an asshole. Everyone hated him even if they kissed his ass. It was just how it worked. They were probably glad he was gone, dead due to mysterious, unspoken causes. 

“I don’t think so, buddy.” Steve was an asshole, after all. He was searching for a ghost while he became one to his own friends. “I’m sorry.” 

“It’s okay.” It really wasn’t. They both knew that. “I kind of get it.” 

“You don’t have to try to,” Steve said. He didn’t know where he was going, he just didn’t want everyone to feel as shitty as he did. He felt shitty all the time, felt shitty for four years and nine months. He was so tired of feeling shitty and driving through deserts. Simply surviving off cheap burgers and gas station wine. He just wanted it to be over. 

“I’ll see you soon,” Steve lied. He had no plans of returning to Hawkins. But hey, maybe Dustin could fly out to whatever new small town Steve was dying in. That could be fun.

“Yeah, sure you will.” Dustin sighed, his voice muffled. Steve really hoped he wasn’t crying. Fuck. Why was he so empty and awful? “Stay safe, okay?” 

“You too.” The line clicked, he’d run out of coins and now Dustin was most definitely crying back in Indiana. It was raining even harder in New Mexico, now. 

**May, 1990**

He was on the border of Arizona and New Mexico. Steve was also _very_ drunk. Like, more than he had been in public since one of Tommy’s parties in Junior year. Before Billy. God, he was fucking _wasted_. 

He’d stopped in some tavern, across the street from, quite possibly, the grimiest motel he’d stayed in to date. He was achieving all sorts of new records. He’d been here since— eight? It was some point past two a.m. His hand was on another man’s leg for the first time since June 25th, 1985. Billy had been captured by the mind flayer two nights later, Steve found out on the 30th. His fingers gripped the man’s knee, probably sending the wrong and right signal all at once. Steve was _very_ drunk and the man looked a bit like Billy in the glow of drunken eyes and dusty lights. 

His hair was shorter than Billy’s had ever been. More strawberry blonde than sun kissed golden. Curly, some falling into his eyes. He had full stubble, framing his jaw oh so nicely. He was beautiful but he wasn’t Billy. Steve grabbed his knee even harder. 

“Why don’t we take this to your room?” The man asked, low in Steve’s ear. He felt like he was eighteen, in the back of Carol’s living room. Him and Billy would sneak out, hoping everyone was too busy with their own lust to notice theirs. Steve thought this man’s name was maybe Jason, or Jackson. Something with a J. Steve didn’t really care, he just liked how he smelled like nicotine and had too much confidence. How he spotted Steve sulking in a booth, two empty scotch glasses in front of him and downright dreadful. Maybe Steve was just an easy target. 

Steve just nodded, didn’t trust his mouth to say anything besides Billy’s name right now. He led them across the street, through the cacti and dirt, climbed the stairs and unlocked his door. 

He was on Steve the minute the door shut, slamming him against the wall and biting into his bottom lip. Billy would have lifted Steve up, tangled his fingers into the back of Steve’s hair. Steve grabbed onto the mans back, gripping his shoulders as he allowed himself to be used. Allowed himself to like it. 

“God,” he moaned into Steve’s ear. Pushed up against him, moved Steve to the bed. Steve remembered the young family on the other side of the wall and how they were gonna hear him get fucked by some stranger he met in a bar, too drunk to remember his name. He was such an awful person. He moaned back, grinded up against the mystery bar man. He was unzipping Steve’s jeans. 

Steve hated himself, he hated whoever was above him. Hated Billy for leaving him to seek one night stands from western themed taverns, from men who only sort of looked like him. Steve hated that he was hard, hated that he was just so fucking lonely and so tired of being numb to everything that happened around him. Here he was, getting undressed by another man that wasn’t Billy. Nobody was Billy. Billy was dead. Billy was dead and Steve was going to get fucked in a shady motel in some town in Arizona and he hadn’t been home in four years and ten months. Steve really fucking hated himself. 

“Can you—” the man’s hands were about to dip into Steve’s boxers. “Can I call you something?” 

He smirked, “Yeah, call me whatever you want baby.” Billy always called him sweetheart, pretty boy, princess. Steve called Billy baby. Steve just nodded, allowing the night to continue. Allowed his bed frame to tap against the wall. Ignored the baby crying. 

He came with Billy’s name leaving his mouth, the man ignoring him. In the morning he was gone and Steve was alone again. He pulled the blanket over him, ignored how awful and horrible he felt. Ignored that he was maybe becoming a bad person. Ignored how Billy took all his goodness with him when he became a hero. 

  
  


**June, 1990**

The tank was almost on empty as he crossed into California. Steve thought it would be more dramatic, more life changing but it was just like Arizona, like New Mexico, like Texas. He figured he should stop expecting such great things to come from names and foreign places. From neon signs, from bars, from miles and miles of roads no longer left unexplored. He drove past the sign welcoming him to the golden state, knowing his golden boy wasn’t here. The sun was just beginning to rise, painting the landscape in front of Steve yellow and orange and — _golden_. 

He understood why Billy wanted to come back here. Romanticized the living hell out of California. It was pretty, for lack of better words. 

Steve kept driving, not quite sure where he was. He hadn’t had a map since New Orleans in ‘87 when his car got broken into. Tried buying one in Tallahassee in ‘88 but figured he was doing semi-okay without one (that was the year he accidentally drove between Atlanta and Chicago _twice,_ both times aiming for Las Vegas). Intuition brought him back to Virginia, then Tennessee, then Oklahoma, then Louisiana _again_ , then Texas. Now California. He fucking hated going through the bible belt but Nevada was just depressing, Washington too rainy. He spent a good deal in Seattle despite the rain, thought he was maybe going to fall in love again there. 

Nick. Nick with his ponytail and his beard and his latte art. Nick who came from a small town like Steve, but just on the other side of Washington. Farmers tan traded in for tattoos from friends. Nick and his blue green eyes, his wavy brown hair, his collection of seashells from Puget Sound. Nick and his grunge, his smoky Nirvana shows by the overpass. Nick and how he would let Steve push him against the wall as Kurt Cobain sang about needing a friend, an ear to lend. Nick was _good_ for Steve, kept him in Seattle for 5 months and 24 days in 1989. Steve left Nick’s apartment in the early morning, hard rain pounding on the Beemer, the day that Billy would’ve turned twenty-two. 

Steve didn’t leave a note for the man that he was slipping into a routine with, falling in love with. Just grabbed his duffel bag, a granola bar from the cabinet, and let his sort of boyfriend continue snoring into the pillow. With his head down, and the apartment dark, his waves spread out (he’d just gotten his hair cut, they were forming more curls than waves now) he almost looked like Billy. Not much, but Steve was still hazy from the weed and the hard cider, but enough to make Steve itch. He needed to get out of Seattle, out of Nick’s arms. 

He had ended up in Colorado. No love was there for him in Colorado, just snow and a flu. 

But California — _California_ — was sunny and it was already warm. He rolled his window down, let the seven a.m. sunshine warm his arm, let the warm breeze blow through his unwashed hair. He even cracked a smile, cruising down the open highway. California was big, so many places parts of Billy could be hiding. 

Four years and eleven months. He’d finally come to Billy’s homestate, admitted the reason he left Hawkins so many nights ago (1,795 nights ago, give or take a few). Somewhere under all these rocks, all the waves, all the tiny, microscopic granules of sand — there’d be a clue. A nod to Billy’s existence. A map, a guideline, to finding a key piece of Billy’s old life. Steve had been on a fruitless scavenger hunt for four years and eleven months and he was dying to find _anything_ . Something meaningless and small and _Billy._

He pulled into a gas station, the first one he found, and filled the tank. He couldn’t find clues on low fuel. Grabbed a pack of Camels (celebratory if Billy was alive, trash if Steve admitted that he wasn’t) and a bag of Funyuns. Started driving more into the great expanse of land that made up Steve’s destination. 

It was a little past eleven a.m. when he pulled into a motel in San Diego. He crashed immediately, not even closing the blinds. The sun was streaming in and he could hear seagulls, children begging to go to the beach. He was starting to not feel so dead. 

\-----

Steve woke up, clock reading 10 p.m. in bright red. He cracked his back, ignored how much he needed a shower, and walked to the corner store and bought a bottle of beer and a sandwich. Plopped down into the cool sand and watched the waves. The stars kept watch over him as he stuck his toes into the sand, played with a pebble. For the first time in a long time, Steve felt sort of safe. 

\-----

Steve sort of hated Los Angeles. It was so _big_ , and yeah, he was expecting that. But he hated feeling like a lost tourist, a french fry being attacked by a seagull, half eaten popcorn in the trash. Although, _although_. Steve was a lost tourist, clinging onto his overpriced tie dye shirt that Billy promised him so many years ago, way back in 1985 before everything went to shit. Except now Steve had to pay for the shirt himself, lonely and heartbroken and pathetic. 

He still wore it everyday, walked the boardwalk and pretended like he wasn’t looking for anything in particular. Just floating around in the haze of Hollywood dreaming like every other poor soul around him. He bought swim trunks, red like the ones Billy wore during his short stint as a lifeguard. Just hoping to make a bit more cash before they were speeding out of Hawkins in Billy’s Camaro. Holding hands, kissing in the moonlight. 

It’d been a week and they still had the tag on them, Steve couldn’t do anything more than crumple them up into his hand and scream into them behind the shower curtain, water not even running. They watched his every movement, reminded him why he was here, as if he could ever forget. 

He had gone to Venice beach, to Tiki Taverns, to backwood bars frequented by bikers. No curly hair, no brooding eyes, no Billy. And sure, Steve reasoned, maybe Billy looked _different_ , maybe he cut his hair and maybe he wasn’t even in Los Angeles. Los Angeles was _big_ and full of so many other people. And maybe, just maybe, Billy was dead and buried and gone and Steve drove all around the country for nothing. Wasted four years and eleven months of his life searching for a story that was already finished. Ending set back in Indiana on the fourth of July. 

Steve still went to surf shops, to the pier’s carnival rides, to ice cream shops. Billy wasn’t at any of them. He wasn’t anywhere. 

Steve really hated Los Angeles.

\-----

Steve saw the Redwood forest. Saw the Golden Gate bridge. Went to Disneyland by himself until he had a panic attack in a bathroom stall that smelled too much like funnel cake. Got day drunk in Joshua Tree. Walked up and down the hills of San Francisco. Sent Dustin a postcard instead of a phone call, eventually he’d find out that Steve was in the one state that he vowed he wasn’t going to go to. That the past four years and eleven months were real. 

He saw all of California throughout June. He just never saw Billy. 

  
  


**July, 1990**

Steve was going to give up on California, he decided one night, as he pulled into a Santa Barbara motel. Nothing was in California except wasted gas money and wannabe stars. California was a wasteland of broken dreams and Steve thought maybe it was time to just fucking grow up. Just head back to Indiana, work for his dad, and settle for a loveless life. 

It was July third, he’d been to every beach in California in the span of a month. He constantly smelled like sea salt and sweat and cigarettes. Like Billy. He was a broken man in an overpriced t-shirt from the boardwalk. 

_Billy has been dead_ , Steve thought, _for four years, eleven months, thirty days, and twenty three hours_. Steve was too tired to even cry. Just sank into a dry puddle of his high school self on the dusty carpeted floor of his motel room and watched the sun rise outside.

Five years. 

\-----

Steve loved Santa Barbara. Never loved another city more. He smiled, he never wanted to leave Santa Barbara.

There was a man on the beach. Just a little past ten p.m. on the fourth of July. The only man that Steve could see, the only man he’d ever need to see. 

Steve really fucking loved Santa Barbara. 

\-----

  
  


Billy was alive.

\-----

Steve’s toes dipped into the sand, pushing his feet in and finding a chilling warmth. Beside him, Billy sat like a rock. He was a boulder, frozen in time and stuck to the ground below him, weathered by the waves and the sea salt winds. His curls were damp and dry all at once, his mustache stemmed into a beard, and there were freckles on his red, sunburnt face. He had a tattoo on his bicep. He had another on the inner arm, one on his upper thigh. Steve was in love. 

“I looked for you for years,” Steve spoke, voice hoarse. They spent all night on the beach, under the stars, listening to the waves crash and yet this was the first time in nine hours one of them had spoken. Steve thought he might be dreaming up Billy’s existence. “Five years. I drove up and down and across America for five years.” 

Billy blinked. He looked rough. Not the kind of fucked up rough from being stabbed by some monster out of a science fiction book then carted off by the Russian government, but the kind of rough from drinking tequila on a beach in southern California for half a decade and never doing anything besides fortifying themselves into the rocky sand. That kind of rough. 

“Well, you found me.” Billy shrugged, his back was sunburnt. Steve leaned over to kiss his shoulder. 

“Five fucking years,” Steve snorted, mouth pressed to the hot skin of Billy’s arm. Steve’s mouth was flush to the skull that was inked into the tan expanse of Billy’s freckled bicep. There was a mole, or maybe a cigarette burn. Steve kissed that as well. 

“I’m here,” Billy mumbled, his hands digging into the sand next to his feet. The movement was proof that he was alive, proof of his existence. “You found me.” 

It was all shockingly profound, Steve thought. Drunkenly stumbling onto a beach, ready to give up his search, and to see the matted curls of a man that Steve once thought was his escape from small town, middle America. Perhaps, he still was. 

The waves echoed over them, the sunrise just beginning to peak over the landscape. It was all peaceful, poetic, sappy as all shit. Steve drove around in his Beemer, up and down the coast, and here Billy was. In Santa Barbara, drinking to death, a nomad of the sand. And Steve — Steve had _found_ him. He kissed his shoulder once more, proving to himself that Billy was tangible and real and not in some Russian basement being prodded by a stun gun or poked with a needle. He was hot under his fingertips, there was a heartbeat and blood coursing through Billy’s body. 

Steve had found him. 

**Author's Note:**

> [reblog here](https://gabe-lewis.tumblr.com/post/614679853817561088/swim-with-me-i-think-i-could-see-the-beach)


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